


Monkey Games

by tptplayer5701



Series: "Mind Games"-verse [14]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Competitive Alix Kubdel and Lê Chiến Kim, Identity Reveal, Lê Chiến Kim Being an Idiot, Miraculous Holder Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Miraculous Holder Nino Lahiffe, Miraculous Holder Rose Lavillant, Monkey Lê Chiến Kim | Roi Singe, Pig Miraculous, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat, Rooster Miraculous, Rooster Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Turtle Nino Lahiffe | Carapace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24495115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptplayer5701/pseuds/tptplayer5701
Summary: A "Mind Games"-verse "Spring Break" story“There… are some turtles acting really weird at the zoo,” King Monkey told him. “I–” At that moment the monkeys started shrieking and rattling their cage bars. King Monkey covered his ears and winced. “Something’s got a bunch of the animals here riled up,” he shouted, racing back the way he had come.-------Alix rounded the corner just in time to watch a bear knock King Monkey sprawling to the ground. He landed on his chest and groaned. The bear grunted before turning around and sitting down, directly on top of King Monkey.“What the actual hell,” she breathed, her jaw dropping in shock. King Monkey was bathed in golden light. She blinked against the sudden brightness before looking back. At first Alix thought she was seeing things, but then she realized this had to be real: King Monkey was gone, and there was Kim.
Relationships: Alix Kubdel & Lê Chiến Kim, Nathaniel Kurtzberg & Lê Chiến Kim
Series: "Mind Games"-verse [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666807
Comments: 22
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place concurrent with ["The Press Conference](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24458197/chapters/59024272) as well as the first chapter of the next story to come out, titled “Purity and Corruption.” There are dialogue indicators of how all of this fits together.

King Monkey leapt from the Zoo’s main building, dropped onto the hippo statue in front of it, and sprang from the statue, using his Ruyi Jingu Bang staff to vault himself to the top of a streetlight. He flipped off the streetlight backward, caught the crossbar with one hand, and swung around it once, building his momentum before launching himself from there to land on top of the closest cage. He turned back to see his partner still standing on top of the building with his jaw hanging open.

“C’mon!” King Monkey called, waving up to him. “Don’t tell me you’re a–”

“Don’t say it,” Geber warned, glaring at him.

“–Chicken!” King Monkey finished, laughing uproariously at his own joke.

“Rooster!” Geber retorted, preening and puffing out his chest. His suit was entirely red-orange, with yellow and green accents across the chest and a red mask covering the top half of his face and bringing his hair together into a bright orange Mohawk that caught in the wind. Geber took a deep breath and leapt from the roof. He landed awkwardly on the statue but swung out his spur to catch his balance. He smoothly jumped off the statue and caught the streetlight’s crossbar with the hook on one end of his spur, swung around once, and retracted the hook, launching himself up to land in a crouch next to King Monkey.

“Not bad,” King Monkey told him with a nod. “For a beginner.”

“You realize gymnastics isn’t exactly Carapace’s priority in training, right?” Geber asked sardonically.

“Excuses, excuses. That’s your first mistake: relying on a _turtle_ to teach you how to move! That’s what monkeys are for!” King Monkey retorted, flipping back into a handstand, shifting from one hand to the other before returning to his feet. He bounced on the balls of his feet and grinned in excitement. “Now let’s see if you can keep up on a run around the Zoo!”

“Check in, people.”

King Monkey jumped when the communicator in his ear came to life. Geber simply raised an eyebrow at him. King Monkey raised a finger. “Don’t even…”

“This is Viperion. Everything is quiet along the Seine.”

“Of course it’s quiet along the Seine,” King Monkey observed, snorting. “It’s _always_ quiet along the Seine!” He activated the communicator and commented, “Cat really isn’t taking any chances today, is he?”

“About that,” Geber began. “Why _did_ Cat Noir and Ladybug call in all the other heroes for this press conference today?” His eyes narrowed. “Is it because it’s for Hawk Moth’s son and Hawk Moth’s former company, and they suspect Adrien Agreste of having been involved with Hawk Moth?”

King Monkey tried to keep a straight face. “Yes,” he answered seriously, “that is absolutely right.”

Geber gave him a look of outrage and threw his arms out. “That’s crazy! Anyone who knows Adrien knows how crazy that is! The guy doesn’t have an evil bone in his body!”

King Monkey only managed to maintain his straight face for another fifteen seconds before he burst out laughing, falling backwards, kicking his legs in the air, and startling the monkeys in the cage he was standing on.

“I don’t see why that’s so funny,” Geber told him, glowering down at him.

“I really shouldn’t laugh,” he admitted, pushing himself to his feet. “Adrien isn’t who we’re investigating. He’s the bait. The press conference is supposed to lure the bad guy out into the open.”

“Okay… but why are practically all the Heroes involved in this operation today? Why does Adrien warrant this treatment?”

King Monkey put a hand on Geber’s shoulder, looked him in the eye with a serious expression, and said, deepening his voice, “I am sorry I cannot give you all of the answers, my son. You are not ready for that responsibility. I can only tell you that you _will_ have all the answers someday.” He paused dramatically. “And when that day comes, you will come and find me and say, ‘My _God_ , KM! I can’t believe I was such an _idiot_!’” He snorted and clapped Geber on the back. “Or at least that’s what _I_ was saying when _I_ found out!”

Geber opened his mouth to respond but his eyes went wide on hearing Ryoku’s voice over their communicators. King Monkey smirked at seeing the expression on his face. The smirk turned to a frown, however, when Carapace replied.

“Easy there, Ryoku. How do you keep a secret? By telling nobody. That’s what kept us safe before we defeated Hawk Moth: if any of us were Akumatized – and all of us were at least once, remember – we didn’t know who Ladybug was so we couldn’t target her directly. Anansi and Rena were keeping this investigation as close to the vest as possible so Lynchpin wouldn’t realize they were on to him.”

That was a little too much for King Monkey. “I’m with the Dragon,” he announced into the communicator. “I get not tipping their hand, but shouldn’t the rest of us have known _something_ was going on? Look what happened to Cat Noir!”

“What _did_ happen to Cat Noir?” Geber wondered, eyeing him curiously.

 _Shoot_. “… I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Geber shrugged and started twirling his spur. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”

“I’d love to explain everything to you, bro,” King Monkey told him, “but that’s the rule. I can only share my own secrets. I can’t tell you anyone else’s secrets. Either they will tell you themselves, or you’ll figure it out on your own.” He looked around from their position atop the monkey cage. “This isn’t a great vantage point. Make a circuit around the zoo and meet back up by the large predators.”

“Got it.” Geber ran across the roof and leapt over the heads of a small group of tourists, landing lightly on the roof of the next exhibit. He quickly crossed that exhibit’s roof and jumped away.

King Monkey turned the opposite direction, eyes scanning his surroundings for signs of trouble. Nothing stood out as particularly memorable. A man sat on a park bench staring intently at the monkeys. A couple walked down the path holding hands. A girl a couple years younger than him was chasing a pair of little boys. Alix raced down one of the paths on her skates. Satisfied, King Monkey stepped back and raced to the edge of the roof, gathering momentum and leaping to the reptile building across the path. He tucked into a roll and sprang to his feet without losing momentum, scrambling up the sloped section of the roof and sliding down on the other side.

As he was leaping to the next building, he noticed a woman looking around frantically. On the far side of that exhibit, he could see a little boy holding a Carapace doll and watching a group of turtles sunning themselves. King Monkey redirected his jump to land in front of the woman.

“What’s wrong, ma’am?” he asked, landing softly less than a meter from her. He raised a hand in a soothing gesture when she jumped and nearly screamed at his sudden appearance.

“My – my son is missing!” she told him when she had calmed down a little, her hands shaking.

“Was he holding a Carapace doll?”

The woman nodded.

“He’s looking at the turtles on the other side of this exhibit right here,” he told her, pointing.

“Thank you,” she called over her shoulder, racing off in the direction he had pointed.

King Monkey leapt back up onto the building’s roof, where he had a clear view of the woman looking for her son. The moment she spotted him, she cried out and ran straight to him. The boy looked up at the call and waved nonchalantly before returning to staring at the turtles. King Monkey looked away as the mother swept the boy up into her arms, holding him close to her chest. Movement caught his eye, and he glanced into the exhibit which had so captured the boy’s attention. The water had been calm moments before, but had suddenly started to churn as the turtles jumped in and started swimming toward the exhibit walls.

King Monkey toggled his communicator to a private channel. “Hey, Carapace?” he asked hesitantly.

The response came a moment later. “What’s up, dude?”

“Is it normal for turtles to go from sunning themselves to all swimming full-out in a matter of seconds?”

“Why would I know that?”

“Aren’t turtles your thing, Turtle-Dude?” King Monkey asked, chuckling.

“I have the Turtle Miraculous,” Carapace retorted. “That doesn’t make me a tur– hang on.” The communicator was quiet for a moment. King Monkey narrowed his eyes, watching the turtles start standing on each other’s backs in an attempt to scale the walls of their exhibit. “I guess Miss Pinky _is_ a turtle expert,” Carapace finally said. “Who knew? She says the answer to your question is a hard ‘no,’ at least if there aren’t any predators around. Why?”

“There… are some turtles acting really weird at the zoo,” King Monkey told him. “I–” At that moment the monkeys started shrieking and rattling their cage bars. King Monkey covered his ears and winced. “Something’s got a bunch of the animals here riled up,” he shouted, racing back the way he had come.

“What’s wrong?” Carapace asked quickly. “Do you need help?”

“Nah, stay where you are,” King Monkey replied, skidding to a halt on the edge of the reptile building’s roof. From his vantage point he could see the animals in all of the zoo exhibits jumping up and down, slamming into their cages, and shrieking wildly. His communicator beeped at him, and he glanced down at the control on the Ruyi Jingu Bang to see that Geber was calling on their private channel. He toggled the control to switch channels.

“–and I have no idea what to do!” Geber was shouting. It didn’t take much guesswork to figure out what he was calling about.

“Are all the animals still contained near you?” King Monkey checked. From what he could see, the cages and exhibits were still holding, but as the elephant backed up, trumpeted, and charged its exhibit door for the third time, he wondered how much longer that would be the case… and when the pandemonium would start.

“For now,” Geber confirmed. He sounded out of breath. “But I don’t know if the cages will hold up forever. Something’s got the panthers _really_ angry over here…”

King Monkey opened his mouth to respond, but the words caught in his throat as a colossal _roar_ sounded from the far side of the zoo, followed by a chorus of screams. “Are you close to the lions?” he managed.

“Already on the way,” Geber assured him, grunting at the exertion.

“I’d better let the bosses know.” King Monkey grimaced as he switched back to the main channel. “Something… weird is happening at the zoo,” he announced, dropping from the roof and running toward the elephant habitat. “I think Geber and I can handle it.” _Or I_ hope _we can handle it…_

“Let us know if you need backup,” came Rena Rouge’s response.

“I’ll get right on that,” King Monkey muttered under his breath, switching back to his channel with Geber. The elephant had by this time slammed its head into its habitat door hard enough to dent the metal. One of its tusks had gotten stuck in the door, and it was twisting its head around in distress, trumpeting its displeasure. The crowd that had been watching the elephant minutes earlier had all fled.

“Okay,” King Monkey murmured, “what’s got _you_ all riled up?” He jumped down into the habitat and smacked his Ruyi Jingu Bang on a rock as hard as he could. The rock split apart with a _crack_ , and the elephant stilled, looking over at him with its eyes wide in their sockets. King Monkey ran over to where the elephant was still stuck in the door.

“I–I think I’ve got the lion back in its cage,” Geber reported, panting. “But now a couple of the turtles somehow managed to climb out of their exhibit. Give me a second.”

“Little busy with an _elephant_ at the moment,” King Monkey grunted back, jumping up on the elephant’s back. “Easy there,” he told it, patting it on the head. “So what’s turned _you_ into a pissed-off pachyderm?”

The elephant started to growl, softly but growing louder. King Monkey slid down the elephant’s trunk, wedging himself between its head and the door, braced his feet against the door, and pushed. Slowly the tusk came loose from the door, freeing the elephant. King Monkey slipped as the elephant backed away, but grabbed onto its tusk as he fell. He swung around and launched himself up onto the elephant’s head. The elephant ran at a breakneck pace around its habitat, King Monkey balanced on its head and using the Ruyi Jingu Bang to prod it into turning to avoid running into the walls. As the elephant turned to avoid another wall, King Monkey jumped from its head, flipped over the wall, and landed on his feet in the pathway.

He was just drawing a calming breath when he heard a _clang_ behind him, followed by a bellowing roar.

“ _Now_ what?” he grumbled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Geber” is Hebrew for “Rooster” or “Valiant.” Using Hebrew seemed appropriate for Nathaniel, as the only (confirmed) Jewish character on the show. His weapon is a “Spur”: a staff with retractable hooks (spurs) protruding from each end and curving inward.
> 
> In real life, this particular zoo has mostly smaller animals and doesn’t have any of the larger animals (makes sense for a zoo in the middle of Paris). But where’s the fun in writing an “animals gone wild” story without elephants, lions, and more?
> 
> Also, who’s been reading this series long enough to realize what’s going on here? It gets explained in the next chapter, but let me know in a review if you figured it out!


	2. Chapter 2

On instinct, King Monkey dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the charging bear that bounded through the exact spot where he had been standing moments earlier. He landed on all fours, thankful he had kept his grip on the Ruyi Jingu Bang, and looked up to see the bear making its way down a side path. He was about to follow when he nearly lost his balance as the ground began shaking under his hands. He looked back just in time to see a stampede of wildebeests charging straight at him. Uttering a Vietnamese curse of which his mother would _not_ approve, he leaned forward into a handspring, flipping over in midair and landing on the back of the lead animal.

King Monkey grabbed the wildebeest’s horns and jerked its head sharply to the right, turning it – and the herd following it – down the path back to the wildebeest habitat. The thundering stampede behind him, however, could not drown out Geber’s voice in his communicator.

“Any chance you could get the monkeys under control?” he was shouting. “You _are_ the _King_ Monkey after all!”

“Yeah, well, they didn’t get that memo,” he retorted heatedly, ducking under a banner and forcing the wildebeest into another turn. “I’m a little busy cattle rustling at the moment,” he continued. “I won’t be able to help you for a few minutes. What’s up?”

“It’s just – I think the monkeys, snakes, and rodents are all working together!” Geber shouted, his voice rising sharply in pitch. The cacophony of shrieking monkeys from the other side of the zoo came through the communicator clearly.

“ _What???_ ”

“I–”

At that moment, King Monkey’s eyes widened as Carapace dropped down out of nowhere next to the gate to the wildebeest enclosure, held his shield out backward, and shouted, “Shell-ter!” A translucent green force field expanded out following the curvature of the shield. The force field blocked off the pathway behind him and curved toward the gate in a simulated cattle chute. King Monkey gave the wildebeest he was riding a prod in the head pushing it toward the gate for good measure before he leaped off its back, flipped twice, and flew over the Shell-ter to land next to Carapace.

“Neat trick,” he observed.

“We could hear the chaos from our location, dude!” Carapace told him, grinning and shaking his head. “You weren’t answering, so we came over to back you up. You good? Any idea what’s happening?”

King Monkey shrugged before jumping back over the Shell-ter and slamming the gate shut behind the last animal, twisting the metal together for good measure. “No idea, boss. One minute, business as usual. The next…” He spread his arms to encompass the zoo around them. Animals flew around in swarms, diving to peck at the heads of the few visitors left in the area. A small pack of feral cats was riding a pair of camels down the main pathway, hissing and yowling. Squirrels were throwing discarded trash in all directions. Near the concessions, a pair of tortoises used their heads to nudge a woman with her two children who had all taken shelter under a picnic table.

Carapace’s eyebrows disappeared under his helmet and his jaw dropped open. He muttered something under his breath and slammed his fist into his shield as he allowed the Shell-ter to blink away. To King Monkey’s confused look he explained, “I… might have an idea. There’s a magic thing that supposedly allows the wearer to communicate with animals.”

“You’re joking, right?” King Monkey scoffed.

Carapace gave him a look. “You have a tiny demigod who hangs out in your pocket and turns you into a superhero, and _this_ is too much for you, dude?” He laughed. “Miss Pinky and I will take care of the rest of the animals; you and Geber focus on finding someone with a necklace,” Carapace told him.

“You _can’t_ be serious!” King Monkey exclaimed. “‘Someone with a necklace’ – _everyone_ wears necklaces! How am I supposed to–”

“You’ve got a partner,” Carapace retorted, looking him straight in the eye. He reached down, grabbed a heron by the neck without taking his eyes off of King Monkey, and tossed it back into its cage. “Figure it out!” Without another word, he raced down the path toward the concession area.

King Monkey groaned, but jumped onto the roof of a nearby building to find Geber. In the distance he saw two figures – one pink and one orange-and-red – standing back to back and surrounded by a large assortment of animals. He raced toward their location, heedless of the animal chaos beneath him. A pair of eagles dove toward his head as he leapt from the aviary roof, which he evaded by laying out and rolling across the next building’s roof. Geber looked up at the roof on hearing his landing, and jumped up to join him.

“Cornucopia!” Miss Pinky shouted, drawing her jiuchidingpa rake across the gravel in front of her and dragging it into a nearby enclosure. Nine rows of plants sprang up from the furrows, budded, flowered, and produced fruit in an instant. The animals surrounding her descended on the plants ravenously and followed the plants into the enclosure, allowing her to start separating them into their individual habitats.

“So… do we have a plan?” Geber asked, nonplussed, while watching Miss Pinky wrestle a giraffe back into its habitat.

King Monkey shrugged. “We need to find the person controlling them, apparently,” he replied. He smacked his forehead in realization. “That’s what Carapace meant… Now do the thing already!”

Geber nodded, spun his spur above his head, and slammed one end into the roof below them with a shout of “Vigilance!” An orange ring emanated out from the point of contact, spread out over the building, and disappeared into the distance. In a moment, King Monkey lost track of the orange circle as the Vigilance searched the zoo. A minute later, a single orange line shot back to meet the spur end that Geber still held to the roof. “This way,” Geber shouted, leaping off the roof in the direction indicated by the line.

King Monkey followed hot on his heels. Vigilance led the two heroes to the monkey cage, where he was surprised to find the same man sitting on the same bench that he had passed on his earlier patrol around the zoo. The man had his eyes closed while murmuring quietly under his breath. The moneys in their cage were sitting and swaying trancelike in front of the cage bars.

“This is some _weird_ stuff,” King Monkey muttered. Louder he told Geber, “You take him head-on; I’ll circle around.”

Geber nodded and jumped down in front of the strange man. As he landed, a pair of panthers appeared from either side of the man’s bench and leapt at him. Geber ducked under the first panther’s attack, but couldn’t avoid the second. He fell to the ground, the panther on his chest, and jammed his spur shaft between the panther’s jaws with both hands to prevent it from biting his face off. The panther’s front claws extended, scrabbling at his chest. Geber pulled his elbows in close to his sides to block the panther’s claws as they reached up toward his face. He drew his knees up to his chest and kicked at the panther’s underside, pushing it off of him and over his head. The panther tumbled through the air, head-over-tail. Geber rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up to his feet. Holding his spur in both hands like a hockey stick he extended one blade and swung underhanded at the first panther at it sprang at his legs. He struck the side of the panther’s face with the flat of the blade, sending it careening away from him into the grass fringe alongside the path.

King Monkey, meanwhile, raced around to take up a position in the tree under which the stranger was sitting. He could hear the stranger whispering something sibilant in a language he did not recognize, and a pair of garden snakes slithered up behind the bench. King Monkey muttered, “Uproar,” caught the rubber chicken that appeared next to his face, and dropped it on the man’s head. The man sat upright in confusion, blinked, and turned around, searching wildly. At the same time, the monkeys in their cage shook their heads, moved away from the cage bars, and started climbing back into their artificial trees. The panthers, meanwhile, slunk away from Geber, crouching in the shadows and watching him. The snakes stopped halfway up the bench legs, licked the air, and slithered away. The clamor of noise from the zoo animals dropped considerably.

“Who would dare mess with the Animal Man?” the stranger demanded, jumping to his feet and pulling a whip from under his jacket, cracking it in the air in front of himself threateningly.

Whooping in triumph, King Monkey jumped from the tree and landed meters in front of the Animal Man. The man’s eyes widened in fear, and he stumbled backward over the bench. King Monkey advanced on him, Ruyi Jingu Bang held in front of him defensively. He was about to jump over the bench when it suddenly caught fire. King Monkey fell back a pace, spinning the Ruyi Jingu Bang to shield himself from the heat and flames. He leapt over the flames and landed in a crouch on the other side, only to find that the Animal Man had vanished.

“Hey, King Monkey?” Geber called hesitantly. “I could use some help with these panthers!”

King Monkey groaned in frustration, even as the flames died down and disappeared. He narrowed his eyes at the slightly-charred bench suspiciously, edging around it while keeping one eye on it as though expecting it to burst into flames again if he turned his back on it. Geber was using his spur to block one of the still-loose panthers and prevent it from running away, while the other panther eyed his back predatorily. The panther let out a low growl and leapt, a moment before King Monkey jumped to interpose himself between the panther and Geber’s unprotected back, swinging the Ruyi Jingu Bang into the panther’s flank and knocking it aside. Between the two of them, King Monkey and Geber maneuvered both panthers down the pathway and back into their cage before Geber finally slammed the cage door shut. King Monkey grabbed the bars on either side of the door, squeezed them together, and twisted.

“You go that way; I’ll go this way,” King Monkey called, racing down the path toward where a pair of armadillos were waddling away from their habitat. He grabbed one in each hand and dropped them over the fence into their habitat before continuing on to the next group of animals. He was just debating whether to return the Gila monster or the flamingos first when a figure with pink hair mostly covered in a helmet materialized beside him.

“Need some help, Monkey Boy?” Alix asked, blowing out a bubble and eyeing him with some amusement.

“Actually, yeah,” he replied, dropping the lizard into her arms. “If you bring this back where it belongs, I’ll herd these birds back to where _they_ belong.”

“You got it, hero,” she answered, skating away with the ungainly lizard balanced across her arms.

King Monkey sighed in relief. _Leave it to Alix to skate_ toward _the action instead of_ away _from it!_ He poked one of the flamingos with the Ruyi Jingu Bang, pushing it in the opposite direction from where Alix had gone, trying to herd the flamingos toward the bird habitats. Slowly the flock started walking in the correct direction. With a couple extra prods from King Monkey, they took to the air and hopped over the fence into their habitat. From the sounds around him, it was clear that the majority of the animals were back in their enclosures.

His miraculous beeped at him, signaling that he was down to one minute left before his transformation wore off. He started looking around for a place to de-transform and feed Xuppu so he could re-transform and finish cleaning up the loose animals. So intent was he on looking for a hiding spot that he didn’t hear the grunt behind him. Nor did he notice the paw swinging at his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The necklace in question is called the “Mkufu wa Wanyama” (“Animal Necklace” in Swahili) and first appeared in [“Along Came Anansi,”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24077389/chapters/57947866) which is how Carapace knows about it.
> 
> Miss Pinky’s weapon, the “jiuchidingpa,” is a nine-toothed rake from the Chinese myth of Zhu Bajie, the pig-themed friend of Sun Wukong, who is himself a confirmed previous Monkey Miraculous holder. For my stories, the Pig is the Miraculous of Generosity (“Cornucopia” essentially creates food/plants) and the Rooster is the Miraculous of Watchfulness (“Vigilance” alerts the user to a direct threat).


	3. Chapter 3

It was a warm, early spring day, the sun was shining, and the zoo wasn’t terribly crowded: a perfect afternoon for skating. Spring break had just started, and Alix had no intention of opening another school book until at least next Sunday. Instead, she fully intended to spend as much time outside with her friends as possible. Except today, apparently: Marinette, Juleka, and Chloe were all at Adrien’s press conference, and literally everyone else she had asked had backed out for one reason or another. She’d hoped at least _Kim_ would want to go skating with her after school, but even _he_ had already had plans. It was just as well; Kim would just slow her down!

The first indication Alix got that something was wrong came when the snakes in the exhibit she was skating past all lifted their heads together and started hissing and swaying in time. She frowned at that, but shrugged; Jalil had described the snake charmers in Cairo making snakes behave similarly. Then a groundhog ran into the pathway right in front of her. Alix had no time to stop or turn, so she jumped over the groundhog. She came down a little off-balance, swung her arms wildly, and nearly fell over onto her backpack before she caught her balance, spun around twice, and stopped.

“That was sick!” She reached down and picked up the groundhog under its front legs. “You’re a little late for Groundhog Day, you know,” she told it. She glanced around to find its habitat, which was on her right. She was about to place the groundhog back in when she saw a trio of other groundhogs trying desperately to squeeze between the bars and escape. “Okay… in no universe is that normal,” she muttered, dropping the groundhog she was holding over the fence and poking another one’s head back inside. Seeing a large stone inside the fence, she extracted her field hockey stick and prodded the stone over to cover the hole. “You should be grateful I’m not using this on _you_ ,” she commented, waving the stick at them.

A sudden trumpeting from the other side of the zoo – followed immediately by a colossal _crash_ – drew her attention. She was about to go over and investigate when someone who could only have been a superhero jumped down in front of her, swung his stick, and knocked a turtle flying back into the water of its habitat. “You’re not safe around here, Al – er – _citizen_!” the hero shouted, before running away again.

Alix stood still, jaw hanging open, staring at where the hero had been. _Did that dude… have a Mohawk?_ “I thought the weirdness was going to _end_ when Hawk Moth was defeated,” she muttered before skating toward the crashing sound she’d heard.

She had only covered part of the distance when the ground beneath her skates started shaking as though an earthquake was coming. Alix looked around wildly, searching for the source of the disturbance. People ran around the zoo in all directions in a panic. Then her heart nearly stopped: a herd of wildebeest was charging straight at her.

Alix pushed herself to _move!_ She shot over to the side of the path, trying to squeeze as close to the fence as possible. How could there be wildebeest stampeding through the zoo??? She knew better than to try _stopping_ the beasts; nothing would stop them short of a brick wall! All she could do was stay out of the way and hope –

“Mommy!”

 _Crap._ A little boy, no more than six years old, was standing in the middle of the path holding a Carapace doll in one hand. Without thinking, Alix pushed away from the fence. The lead wildebeest was only a dozen meters away. She put on a burst of speed, willing her legs to pump faster. The beast was almost on top of her when she barreled into the boy, grabbed him under the armpits, and dove forward, off the path, into the tiny strip of grass beside the path. She tumbled, landed on her back with the boy on top of her, and rolled over, putting the boy against the exhibit and her back to the herd.

Alix lay there, holding the boy tight, trying to shut out the thunder of hooves, for what felt like an eternity. Finally the thunder died and the last wildebeest ran past them. Alix hazarded a glance, only to see that the coast was clear. “Are you okay, kid?” she asked, pushing herself up to her feet and reaching down to help the boy up.

“I – I think so.” The boy’s lower lip trembled and he stared at her wide-eyed.

Alix stared back at him awkwardly. She grimaced. “Um… it’s a good thing you had Carapace, huh? He protected you, right?”

“Yeah…” He looked down at the doll and then back at her. “Thank you,” he finally said.

“You’re welcome, kid.” She grabbed his hand. “Now where’s your Mommy, huh?”

Fortunately, it only took a minute or two of searching before Alix saw a woman looking around frantically. “Is that your mother?” she asked, pointing.

“Mommy!” The boy took off running, with Alix skating slowly behind him. The woman bent down and pulled the boy in close before looking up to see Alix. She took Alix’s hand in gratitude, to which Alix nodded awkwardly before disengaging to skate away.

Rounding the next corner, Alix saw a trio of porcupines waddling down the path toward her. With a muttered curse, she reached into her backpack for her padded field hockey gloves. She slipped them on without taking her eyes off the porcupines, and bent down to grab one. The porcupine growled and gnashed its teeth at her as she picked it up. She hissed in pain as a couple quills poked through her gloves, but gritted her teeth and dropped the porcupine back into its habitat. Then she turned around to find the remaining porcupines standing still and shaking their heads in confusion. With substantially less trouble, she placed them both back inside their cage alongside the first one.

“You really should be more careful with these things!” she told them, wincing as she fumbled at the quills, trying to pull them out of her palms without taking the gloves off. With much grunting and cursing, she finally managed to extract the quills and remove her gloves. Her palms throbbed painfully where she’d been stuck. “I used to think you were cool,” she muttered, glaring at the porcupines. “Not anymore.”

She stuck a stick of gum in her mouth to take her mind off the pain in her hands. Then she turned away from the porcupines and saw King Monkey down at the end of the path, staring at a couple flamingos and a lizard. “Need some help, Monkey Boy?” she asked, skating over to him and blowing a bubble.

“Actually, yeah.” King Monkey plopped the lizard into her arms. She grunted at the added weight. “If you bring this back where it belongs, I’ll herd these birds back to where _they_ belong.”

“You got it, hero,” she answered, turning to skate away and looking for the lizard exhibit. It only took a couple minutes to find M. Césaire wandering around the zoo with a shell-shocked look on his face. “Hey, um… I’m Alix, a friend of Alya’s?” she called. “Could I give this to you?”

“Alix, of course,” he replied, stirring out of his reverie long enough to accept the lizard from her. “I can see to it that this girl gets back where she belongs. Thank you. I – I can’t believe what just happened here! They… they just went crazy! I just hope no one was hurt!”

“Good thing a couple of the heroes were around,” Alix commented.

“I suppose it’s a good thing _another_ hero was here, too, young lady,” M. Césaire told her, raising an eyebrow. “I saw you rescue that little boy before. Thank you.”

“Just trying to help,” Alix muttered, embarrassed. “I’d better get going.” She shot away, back towards the flamingo habitat.

Alix rounded the corner just in time to watch a bear knock King Monkey sprawling to the ground. He landed on his chest and groaned. The bear grunted before turning around and sitting down, directly on top of King Monkey.

“What the actual hell,” she breathed, her jaw dropping in shock. “Hey!” she shouted, waving her arms as she raced toward the spot. The bear looked up at her in some confusion – _since when can bears look_ confused _?_ she wondered – and let out a low growl. She bent over carefully and swiped a stick off the ground before straightening up and running the stick along the bars of the habitat she was skating past. The bear growled and glared at her. “That’s it…” she murmured, shooting past the bear and ducking under a paw that it swiped at her head.

She heard a grunt from behind her and spun around, skating backward while watching the bear, still running her stick along the fence bars, daring the bear to chase her. She abruptly changed directions, racing toward the bear on the other side, just out of its reach, running the stick along the fence on that side of the path. This time it slowly lumbered to its feet, moved away from the fallen hero, and reached out further to swipe at her with a front paw.

“Come on,” Alix grunted, staying close to the bear but just outside its reach. Finally the bear followed after her and waddled away from King Monkey. “That’s it, girl,” she muttered. She turned to check on the fallen hero as the bear waddled off down a side path.

Just as she was spinning around, King Monkey was bathed in golden light. She blinked against the sudden brightness before looking back. At first Alix thought she was seeing things, but then she realized this had to be real: King Monkey was gone, and there was Kim, lying in exactly the same position that King Monkey had been, with a tiny monkey-creature nudging at his head.

“No way,” she breathed, eyes bulging. Kim? A superhero? That just didn’t make sense! And yet… it kind of _did_. Alix had only seen King Monkey in action on a handful of occasions, and some of those times, Kim had been in the area right before. King Monkey was playful, joked around, rarely took things too seriously… the more Alix thought about it, the more she realized that King Monkey couldn’t be anyone _but_ Kim!

“King Monkey!” someone shouted behind her. She spun around to see the other hero from before – the one with the Mohawk. “Oh! Al – ahem – _citizen_! What… what happened to him?” he asked, looking down at Kim. “And have you, um, have you seen King Monkey around?” He scratched his scalp next to his Mohawk awkwardly.

“And you are…?”

“Oh! Um… I’m… Geber,” he stammered. “I’m… kinda new at this. And I lost my partner. Great first mission…” he muttered to himself.

Alix gave him a nonplussed look. She was about to tell him that his partner was unconscious on the ground when she realized that he must not know that Kim was King Monkey. Kim would kill her if she revealed his identity – rather, Kim would _try_ to kill her if she revealed his identity… “Oh! King Monkey! Yeah! I saw him go… that way!” she finally told him, a little louder than necessary, picking a direction at random. “You go look down that way, and I’ll help Kim here. I think he had a bad run-in with a flamingo.”

“Um… thanks…” the new hero said, giving Kim a concerned glance before running in the direction Alix had pointed.

Once Geber had disappeared, Alix raced over to Kim and dropped to her knees next to his head. “Come on,” she whispered, slapping his cheek. “Wake up, you stupid jock!”

“Who’re you calling a ‘stupid jock’?” Kim coughed, rolling over onto his back.

“You, Monkey-Brain,” she retorted, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I’ll have you know, I–” He stopped, glanced down at himself, and looked at her in confusion. “Wait, why did you call me ‘Monkey-Brain’?”

She stared at him. “Seriously?”

He blanched. “I–I have no idea what you’re talking about, Alix.” He chuckled awkwardly, staring at her with an innocent expression. His shoulders slumped. “Ugh, fine. But you seriously can’t tell anyone.”

“Duh. I didn’t even tell the Chicken Kid,” she scoffed. “I know how to keep a secret.”

“Good.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, the super-awesome, super-amazing King Monkey has a job to do. Are there any more animals out?”

“There’s a bear,” Alix reported. “But there’s no way you’re going on your own. You need help.”

“Please, I was doing just fine on my own.”

“I saw that. You had that bear right where you wanted it: sitting on your back while you lay there unconscious!”

“I… I knew what I was doing!” Kim insisted. Alix stared at him dubiously. “Fine,” he finally conceded. “But I’m the hero here, so you need to listen! Otherwise, you could get hurt, and Ladybug would murder me if I allowed you to tag along and you got hurt.”

“Whatever you say,” Alix snorted. “But that’s pretty rich coming from the guy that just got knocked out by a bear!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Timetagger” never happened in this universe (for a variety of reasons, mostly involving the Rabbit Miraculous mechanics), so Alix doesn’t know about Kwamis. And her pocket watch isn’t a miraculous.

Kim groaned in frustration and pushed himself to his feet. He didn’t seem to be any worse for wear, considering that a bear had been sitting on his back. He ran a hand around the circlet in his hair to make sure it was still intact. “Xuppu?” he called. “What happened to you, little guy?”

Xuppu flew out of a hiding spot in Kim’s hood and stopped in front of his face. “Do you mean before or after you let a black bear use you as a bean bag chair?” the kwami retorted, sticking out his tongue at him and making a face. “Because that part was totally fun.”

“Heh, sorry about that.” Kim ran a hand through his hair and grinned. “But getting to ride a wildebeest _and_ an elephant today was totally worth it!”

“I must be going insane,” Alix muttered to herself, glancing back and forth between Kim and the Kwami. “This is what it feels like to be losing your mind. That bear ripped apart my last remaining shred of sanity, and the men in the white coats are going to show up any minute now to take me to the happy farm. And now Kim is talking to a flying beanie baby.”

“Excuse me, _Pinky_ ,” Xuppu retorted, flying over to Alix, floating centimeters away from her face, and poking her in the nose. He folded his arms and glared. “I happen to be a Kwami! I’m an immortal being that embodies Jubilation, and I would _appreciate_ a little respect!”

Kim stifled a laugh at seeing the look of openmouthed shock on Alix’s face as she took in the tiny monkey-being glaring at her. He’d been with Xuppu long enough by now to realize that his brand of “Jubilation” involved as much mockery as anything else. Xuppu tossed his head arrogantly and turned his back on Alix, whose jaw was still hanging open, only to spin into a flip while laughing uproariously and kicking his tiny feet in the air. Kim’s straight face cracked at the same time, and he fell backward laughing wildly. There was a soft pressure on his stomach as Xuppu landed on him, and the two of them were left laughing with tears in their eyes while Alix stared at them in bewilderment.

“This… this is what my life has turned into, isn’t it?” She slapped herself across the face and coughed. “Don’t we have a _bear_ to track down?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Kim shrugged. “It’s a bear running loose in the middle of Paris. What’s the worst that can happen?” Alix stared at him in disbelief.

Xuppu groaned. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say something so asinine. But I do need a snack before you transform again.”

Kim felt around in his pockets. “Shoot, I forgot to pack any snacks today.” He grimaced and shrank back from the Kwami’s glare.

“You came out here for the express purpose of doing hero things and you forgot to pack snacks just in case you had to do hero things???” Xuppo demanded, smacking Kim’s forehead. He turned to look at Alix. “Is he always this dense, Pinky?”

Alix smirked. “I’m pretty sure he was dropped a couple time as an infant,” she replied. She slid her backpack off one shoulder and rummaged around before pulling out a bag of blueberries. “Are these okay?” she asked, holding a handful out to the Kwami. “I had some left over after practice today.”

The Kwami grabbed a few berries and shoved them in his mouth. “You know what? You’re okay, Pinky.”

Alix rolled her eyes. “I have a name.”

“I know.”

As soon as Xuppu was finished eating, Kim shouted, “Xuppu, Show time!”

As the golden light around King Monkey faded, he heard Alix whisper, “Now _that_ was cool.”

“Don’t you forget how cool I am!” King Monkey told her, wagging his eyebrows, flexing his arms, and striking a pose.

“Dream on, Monkey Brains,” she retorted, putting a hand on her hip and rolling her eyes as she blew a languid bubble. She smirked. “I was talking about the Kwami, not the lug _using_ the Kwami!” Then without a backward glance she shot away down the path toward the zoo exit.

King Monkey raced to catch up to her. The miraculous did enhance his speed, but Alix’s speed on her skates was fast enough that he didn’t need to hold back much for her sake. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?” he asked, running beside her.

“The bear went this way,” she told him. “You can see scratch marks on that tree. Plus, I watched it walk away while you were lying there. Unconscious. Because a bear sat on you. That I had to chase off. You’re welcome.”

“I get it, I get it,” he grumbled. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“Not even a little bit.” She grinned mischievously.

“You realize there is literally no one on the planet you can tell that to, right?” He winced, dreading her response.

“Maybe not about Kim,” she acknowledged, “but about King Monkey?” Her eye twinkled.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “How about this: if I see the bear first, you can’t bring this up ever again; if you see the bear first, you can tell everyone.”

“Deal,” she replied, smirking. “Now who should I tell first?” She stroked her chin contemplatively. “Do you think I can work it into a speech at your wedding somehow?” He gave her a look. “Oh, right, you’d need to find a girl brain-damaged enough to _marry_ you for that to happen!”

“Don’t count your monkeys before they’ve shrieked,” he told her, grinning and pointing ahead. “Look!”

What he saw was not the bear. Instead, it was a tree that had been pushed over until its roots were almost sticking out of the ground. A smashed beehive lay next to the tree, honey spilling out onto the ground. King Monkey stopped momentarily to push the tree back into the ground and tamp the dirt down around its base.

“So we’re definitely going the right direction,” Alix observed, ducking under a swarm of angry bees and watching him work, eyes scanning the area carefully. “I don’t see any bear here, though. If _you_ think the bear’s here, you must’ve hit your head a lot harder than I thought. When the bear sat on you, remember?”

King Monkey was just thinking of a comeback when they reached the zoo entrance and a trio of stray dogs met them at the gate, standing side by side in a straight line. In front of the dogs was a mixed group of squirrels and rats.

“What the hell is going on today?” Alix muttered, skidding to a stop meters away from the animals. “Are we sure _I_ ’m not the one with the concussion?”

“It’s gotta be the necklace thing again,” he muttered back, stopping next to her and testing his Ruyi Jingu Bang in his hands. “I disabled it, but it must have worn off.”

“A ‘necklace,’” she repeated. “And it makes animals do this.” She shrugged and extracted her field hockey stick from its spot on her backpack. “After the last few years, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by any of the weird stuff that happens in Paris!”

With a yell, the two of them charged into the pack of animals side by side. King Monkey held his Ruyi Jingu Bang like a baseball bat, swung, and smacked one of the dogs away from himself before kicking the next one – gently, of course. Next to him, Alix was using her field hockey stick to clear a path through the mass of rodents, shoving them to the sides. However, for each one she pushed aside, two more sprang in to take its place.

“We can’t exactly stop them without stopping whoever’s controlling them,” King Monkey called, dancing on his tiptoes around a cluster of squirrels. He stepped on a tail, and the squirrel attached to it shrieked and scrabbled at his boots with its claws. “All we can do is get past them!”

“Easier said than done!” Alix grunted. One of the dogs grabbed her field hockey stick in its mouth and tugged at it, nearly pulling her off-balance. She held on tight, and the dog started dragging her off the path. Alix let go with one hand, reached back, and pulled a field hockey ball from a side pouch on her backpack. She waved the ball until the dog released her stick and started panting and wagging its tail. Then she threw the ball as far as it could go. All three dogs raced off after the ball.

“Couldn’t you have _led_ with that?” King Monkey asked, shaking his head and pushing a dozen rats aside with his foot.

“Now where’s the fun in that?” she smirked. “Besides, I think I had enough smart ideas when I rescued _you_ from getting turned into a crepe! I’d say it’s _your_ turn to use your brain, but that would imply you _have_ one, so…”

He ignored her. “Come on,” he shouted, running down the sidewalk to the right. “The bear went this way!”

Alix raced to catch up. “What makes you so sure?” she asked.

In reply, King Monkey pointed down the street at a streetlamp that had nearly been wrenched from the ground. “Does that answer your question?”

“No,” Alix told him, “but that does!” She pointed several blocks away to where King Monkey could see a bear waddling along toward the business district.

“Are you kidding me?” King Monkey groaned. He glared at Alix. “How about double or nothing?”

“No deal,” she replied, grinning. “Maybe I should give Alya an interview for the Ladyblog…”

“Don’t you dare!” he growled threateningly.

Alix hummed. “You’re right,” she decided, eyeing him predatorily. “The Ladyblog is a little too niche. Maybe I should put it in all the newspapers in the city. Along with a picture! Think it could get syndicated? Maybe I can get an interview with Nadja Chamack!”

“Hold up,” he called, stopping a block away from the bear. The bear had stopped and was lying on its back sunning itself on the sidewalk outside of a building that King Monkey recognized as a bank. “Of all the places in the city, why would the bear decide to come here? What’s so special about this bank?”

“Maybe it needs to make a deposit,” Alix joked.

“If it does, _you_ ’re cleaning it up!” he retorted.

“Hey!” she shot back. “You still owe me for saving your life, Monkey Boy!”

The bear chose that moment to sit up, roll over onto its paws, and walk into the bank. No sooner had the bear entered than the bank’s front windows were blown out by the discharge of an energy weapon.


	5. Chapter 5

Alix stopped outside the bank and held out a hand to hold King Monkey back from charging in. “Hang on!” she shouted. “There are people with guns in there! They shot out the window with an _energy weapon_! _And_ now there’s a bear! So what are we supposed to do?”

“What,” he scoffed, “you’ve never stopped a bank robbery involving energy weapons and wildlife before?”

“Um… no.” Alix gave him a disbelieving look. “Should I be concerned that this is what you consider _normal_ now?”

He shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t think this would be our new normal, either,” he admitted. “When we defeated Hawk Moth I figured things would go back to normal.” He chuckled ruefully. “The devil is in the details, I supposed. Maybe we should’ve been content with what we had, considering that this _is_ ‘normal’ now. It turns out that Hawk Moth kept the rest of the criminal element under control while he was in charge; the new underworld boss has been going full-tilt with the crimes. If you want to stay out here since you don’t have superpowers, I won’t think any less of you.”

“No, you’ll just bring it up every time we hang out until the sun explodes,” she retorted. “Besides, what if that bear decides to sit on you again?” She steeled herself, withdrew her field hockey stick, and said, “Let’s do this.”

“I make out five in there, minus the bear,” King Monkey told her, stealing a quick peek around the window frame. “There are a few civilians in the near corner, a couple more huddling behind the couch off to the side. I don’t see the tellers; they’re probably hiding behind the counter.” He grinned. “I bet I take down more of them than you do!”

“You’re on!” Alix smirked. “Loser wears a dress to school on the first day back?”

Without waiting for his answer, Alix put on a burst of speed, shot forward, and leaned into a tight turn to shoot through the bank’s front door, at the same moment that King Monkey leapt through the blown-out window. She ducked under a flock of pigeons that dove at her head – “Seriously? Why is it always _pigeons_?” she grumbled, spinning into a twist as a dog lunged at her side. The bear roared, and she dove behind a table to avoid the paw swiping at her head.

“Um, I think we maybe might have forgotten about something!” she shouted, glaring over at King Monkey, who was shaking his staff furiously, trying to dislodge the pair of cats that had taken hold of it by the ends. Alix pulled a hockey puck out of her backpack and threw it at one of the cats, hitting it in the head and knocking it off King Monkey’s staff. King Monkey spun the staff in a tight circle, and the other cat went sailing across the room to land on the bank counter. It hissed and swiped at a pair of pigeons that flew a little too close to its head.

A whip cracked centimeters from Alix’s head, and she turned to find the man with the necklace holding a hawk on his wrist and a whip in his hand. “You cannot defeat the Animal Man!” he shouted, cracking his whip again and letting out a shriek. The hawk took off from his wrist, crowed, and shot straight at Alix’s face. She ducked a moment before impact, and the hawk’s talons struck her helmet and scrabbled a moment to find purchase before its momentum carried it past her. She held her stick in front of herself and backed away carefully, her eyes trained on the Animal Man and ears straining for the sound of the hawk if it returned.

Alix stumbled into a civilian who was cowering on the floor. “You need to get out of here!” she shouted, grabbing the woman’s shoulder and pulling her up into a crouch. She turned toward the front door to usher the woman out the front door, holding her field hockey stick between herself and the Animal Man. However, the way was blocked by a robber who pointed a handgun at her.

An instant before he pulled the trigger, Alix swung her hockey stick and slapped the gun up to point at the ceiling. The energy beam lanced through the ceiling, melting a straight line through the roof. Alix could see sunlight through the hole, a moment before another flock of pigeons dove through it. “Are you kidding me?” she shouted, ducking under the swarm and letting the birds fly straight into the man who had created the hole in the first place. He screamed in shock. “Mind taking care of that?” she called, risking a glance to see King Monkey knocking the gun out of another guy’s hand and placing himself between the now-disarmed robber and a small family huddling in one corner of the lobby.

“Right!” King Monkey dropped to the floor and swept the guy’s legs out from under him. “Uproar!” He grabbed the baseball that appeared next to his head, tossed it in the air, and hit it with his staff, sending it ricocheting off two walls before it struck the Animal Man in the back of the knee. The Animal Man grunted in pain and fell to the floor, cradling his injured knee.

A dog had bounded over to Alix and begun circling around Alix and the woman while snarling. When the ball struck the Animal Man, however, the dog sat back on its haunches, gave Alix a confused look, and yelped before racing out the bank doors, followed by a pair of cats, a flock of pigeons, and a very-confused porcupine. Alix pushed the woman out the doors after the animals and looked around the lobby. The man King Monkey had just knocked down was already back up on his feet. The Animal Man was still down, rubbing the back of his knee. Three more guys, including the one with the energy gun, were aiming their weapons at the civilians on the other side of the room, shouting indistinctly. And the bear was grunting to itself and shaking its head in confusion. King Monkey was busy with the guy closest to him and couldn’t do anything for the civilians on the opposite side of the room. She was the only one who could stop this madness from turning into a bloodbath.

Alix grabbed the Frisbee she’d stuck in the front mesh of her backpack, took aim, and threw it overhand. The disk arced down to smack the first guy in the head, throwing his aim off. He dropped to one knee, shaking his head in confusion. Too hyped up on adrenalin to consider the danger, she pushed away from the table next to her and angled herself toward the remaining gunmen, pumping her legs to push herself faster. She grabbed the gun arm of the closest robber still on his feet and wrenched it around behind his back, forcing him to drop the gun and using the momentum to swing her body into the air. She kicked the third guy in the shoulder with both her rollerblades. The man she’d kicked lost hold of his gun, which fell to the floor and skidded away into the far corner. The other man, the one she was still holding, was pulled off balance and fell over with Alix’s momentum. She released her grip on his arm and fell to the floor, catching herself on one knee and pushing herself back up to her feet. The robber reached for his gun, and quick as lightning she knocked the gun out of his reach with her field hockey stick before bringing it up with both hands and smashing him over the head, cracking the stick in half. Two down.

She heard a gun charging three meters away and looked up to find the last man, the one she’d hit with her Frisbee, back on his feet, the energy gun still in his hands. She glared angrily, staring down the barrel. Suddenly, he fell to the ground with a _thud_ , and King Monkey stood behind him, panting with exertion.

“I got two of them,” King Monkey announced. “You?”

“Two,” she told him, gesturing to the two next to her. She nodded to the other side of the room. “What about…”

King Monkey turned to follow her gaze. The Animal Man was still standing, holding his whip in one hand and a chair in the other as an improvised shield. The bear was sitting on the floor next to him, taking in its unusual surroundings. “You would dare to attack the Animal Man?” he demanded, cracking his whip in the space between them. “I will rip you to shreds and feed you to the lions! You cannot stop me!”

“Tiebreaker?” King Monkey asked, grinning and twirling his staff.

“Tiebreaker,” Alix agreed, holding one half of her field hockey stick in each hand.

Before either of them could move, however, the bear pushed itself up onto its back legs and roared. The Animal Man turned to look at it in surprise and shouted, “You must obey me!” The bear, however, raised one paw, curled it into a fist, and dropped it on his head. The Animal Man fell to the floor senseless, his whip and chair clattering across the floor out of his reach.

“Well, um… that… works, I guess,” King Monkey said, nonplussed.


	6. Chapter 6

King Monkey collected the robbers’ guns and piled them up by the curb, setting the energy gun to the side, before dragging the unconscious robbers themselves out, two at a time, to wait for the police. While he took care of the criminals, Alix used the two halves of her field hockey stick to prod the bear out of the bank lobby. Once outside, however, the bear plopped down on the sidewalk next to the entrance, right behind the pile of gunmen, curled up on its side, and began licking its paws. Once he was satisfied, King Monkey sat down between Alix and the bear and leaned back against the bank. Alix offered him a water bottle, which he killed in a single long gulp.

“So… does that mean it’s a tie?” Alix asked. She chuckled. “Too bad; I wanted to see you wear a dress on Tuesday!”

“Well,” he began slowly, stroking his chin, his eyes lighting up in amusement, “if we both took out two of them, and the bear took out one, that means the bear lost!” King Monkey wagged his eyebrows at Alix. “You know what that means?”

“You’re going to come to school on Tuesday with scratches covering every millimeter of your body after failing to put a dress on a bear?” Alix asked sardonically. “Because if that’s what you’re thinking, I _really_ want to watch you try to put a dress on a bear!”

“I can totally put a dress on a bear!” King Monkey declared. “In fact, maybe I should ask Ladybug to design a dress in the bear’s size. What size would you call it? 22D? 24?”

“Okay, first, why are you asking me?” Alix retorted, stifling a laugh. “And second, even _I_ know that women’s dress sizes don’t work like that. Like… _at all_. But why ask Ladybug? Why not ask Marinette?”

 _Crap_. “Yeah…” King Monkey replied, running a hand through his hair anxiously. “She probably _would_ be the better person to ask…” He glanced over at Alix to find her eyeing him suspiciously. He gave her his best innocent smile, and she burst out laughing.

“You know, you did really well today,” King Monkey told her, “or at least, you did well for someone without a miraculous!”

Alix snorted. “You really think I _need_ a miraculous?” she asked, twirling the two halves of her field hockey stick like batons. “I completely schooled you in basketball last week – _and_ you’re a head taller than me. I saved _you_ today, didn’t I? I don’t need superpowers to be super-awesome! Why don’t you let me know next time you’re out ‘on patrol.’ Maybe I’ll tag along. Especially if it’s during break. After all, _someone_ ’s got to keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t get squashed by a bear!”

“You really aren’t going to let that one go, are you?” King Monkey asked, shaking his head ruefully. He thought for a minute before hitting a button on his Ruyi Jingu Bang to pull up his phone interface. Finding the message app he texted Ladybug: “Alix really helped me out today with a thing. Any chance we can bring her in?”

Less than a second later he had a response. “What kind of thing???”

He blanched. “Crap. I completely forgot to tell Ladybug what was going on at the zoo,” he groaned. “After all of this, she’s going to skin me and hang me from the top of the Eiffel Tower!”

“Why would she do that?” Alix wondered, while King Monkey quickly summarized the afternoon for Ladybug.

The response was instantaneous: “Do you have the necklace?”

King Monkey was confused for a minute. _“Necklace”?_ Suddenly he slapped himself in the forehead. “Of course,” he groaned. Seeing the confused look on Alix’s face, he told her, “Take the necklace off that guy… the ‘Animal Man.’” She found the necklace and held it up to him. “Great, now put it on and see if you can talk to this bear.”

“Okay…” she said slowly, giving him a dubious look and putting on the necklace. “But do we really want to do that? I mean, isn’t this thing what made all the animals at the zoo lose their freaking minds?”

“Just do it,” King Monkey groaned impatiently. “We need to make sure it’s the real deal.” Alix furrowed her brow in concentration for a minute and let out an unnatural, guttural sound. In response the bear gave a high-pitched grunt and shook its head.

“What d’ya know,” Alix said after a minute, eyes bugging out in surprise. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a bag of blueberries. “She’s hungry.”

“Huh.” King Monkey shook his head and typed his answer to Ladybug: “We got it. So… Alix???”

The response came back quickly.

“Good news,” King Monkey announced. “Ladybug says you’re in. Only she doesn’t want to hand out another miraculous just yet since we only just recruited three more heroes – you met Geber didn’t you? Is that okay with you?”

“As if I need a miraculous,” Alix scoffed. “Though it _would_ be awesome…” She gave his headband a wistful glance.

“No kidding,” King Monkey agreed with a nod before hitting the button to call Pegasus. “Hey, Pegasus?” he asked when the other had answered. “Are you at Headquarters?”

“I just arrived,” he replied. “Rena Rouge and I have some data to process following the press conference. Why?”

“Oh, you are? Can you open a portal? I have something you _need_ to see – an energy weapon, but not one like those things you’ve been playing with the last few months. Also, I’ve got a couple new heroes to bring in.”

“A ‘couple’?” Alix mouthed, arching an eyebrow at him in confusion before glancing up at the bear. Her jaw dropped open and her eyes went wide. “You have _got_ to be kidding me…”

“Did Ladybug approve this?” Pegasus asked, doubt in his voice.

“Absolutely.” He nodded. “I asked her before I called you.”

“Okay…”

“Oh, and Ladybug says that Alix isn’t getting a miraculous just now; you got anything to hook her up with?” King Monkey asked.

“Oh, Alix is joining us now?” Pegasus told him excitedly. “I most certainly have something for her. There are a few pieces of equipment I have been tinkering with recently. Perhaps she can find a use for some of them.”

At that moment a glowing circle of light appeared right in front of King Monkey and grew to three meters in diameter. King Monkey hopped to his feet and waved for Alix to follow him through, with the bear bringing up the rear. King Monkey smirked as Pegasus’ eyes drifted from him to Alix and then to–

“Oh, no! There is no way Ladybug approved of you bringing a _bear_ into our Headquarters!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bunnyx is eventually going to make an appearance in this series, but that’s not going to happen for a while (Remember, the Rabbit Miraculous in this universe works differently, so it won’t be exactly the same Bunnyx anyways). For at least her next few appearances, Alix is just a non-powered hero with a few pieces of tech supplied by Max/Pegasus.


End file.
